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Next stop: The Internet abattoir

There comes a time when all little boys must grow up. At a certain age, they gotta start wearing big-boy pants, stop wearing their mother’s pearls, start sleeping in big-boy beds and understand what their wee-wees are capable of. Eventually, all little boys do grow up, maybe attend college or some sort of VoTech, but they do eventually mature into men.

Or, maybe they don’t.

Case in point: Bronies. Think about it — they are what they think they are. But I’ll spell it out for you anyway. Or, I’ll have UrbanDictionary.com do it for me.

Bronies simply means people who are of an older age group and like to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. There is nothing particularly exciting about this, but they make a big deal out of it.Jump on to a forum most places online, and you will see these people often pushing their fandom. As in, you will be on a forum for cars, and someone will have their display picture as a pony, and all their posts will be about ponies. Then when people accuse them of being off topic, they go into a rant about acceptance, as if watching a cartoon is some sort of big revelation.Subculture is one thing, but it is a totally other thing to push it into people’s faces and then get upset. It would be like heavy metal fan jumping on to a My Little Pony forum and spending their whole time talking about metal, and then getting upset that they aren’t well received.

As such, bronies are known to complain about acceptance, and about how hard it is to live in a world like this. News flash fellahs, no one really gives a shit. People don’t hate that you like My Little Pony, they hate that you won’t fucking shut up about it.

Brony: Hey guys, I know this is a post about motorbikes, but did anyone watch My Little Pony yesterday? Wow!Regular poster: Umm…that is a bit off topic, don’t you think? What is with all these posts about ponies?Brony: Us bronies just want to be treated like everyone else. Why do you hate us for our subculture?

I guess it’s a good thing that these men aren’t out harming the community or stinking up their local coffee hangouts, playing their complaint rock on their ukeleles. What they should be doing instead of fantasizing about My Little Pony is helping their moms clean up the house when she’s about to have her bridge club over. Or help her set up her Arbonne Cosmetics display before skulking back down into the basement where he has inevitably set up his life after graduating from college a few years ago. I get the whole ‘the economy sucks so I’m going to revert back to my childhood’ attitude that so many of these so-called hipsters have done with the wearing of Vans, leggings and Hello Kitty t-shirts. It’s what some have to do to feel better about their situations. I get that… to a point.

But calling themselves Bronies–I mean, don’t you just want to slap the shit out of ’em for being complete choads? Bronies is as obnoxious as ‘bromance’ and ‘frat bros.’ I’m sure there are other ‘bro’ titles but my gag reflex can only handle so much action in one day. Oy. And I can just smell the Jager Bombs, Axe Body Spray and cheap stogies too. Makes me want to throw up in my mouth a little.

However, some folks like the ones who own Hasbro and the whole My Little Pony franchise, don’t get it and I don’t blame them. They get the whole obnoxious hipster doofus scene.

“Forget SOPA. The biggest online intellectual property story last week was the shutdown of a website offering downloads of the cartoonMy Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which shook the burgeoning “brony” community to its core.

Bronies (bro+pony) are adult male fans of the new series launched in 2010 based on the classic ‘80s My Little Pony toy that [spoiler] your mom secretly threw out your collection of when you went to college.

If you think bronyism sounds like something only a serious pervert living in his mother’s basement would be into, you’re only about 30% correct. To address your immediate question: it’s not ironic. It’s nerdy guys who genuinely enjoy an animated series about ponies. The show has a legitimate appeal to older audiences—high production values, snappy dialog, and a heartwarming message. But the online fan culture of bronies grew out of 4chan, so they have a computer nerd vestigial tail of Mountain Dew, anime appreciation, chronic virginity, and cyberbullying.”

If anyone deserves to be cyberbullied, it’s these guys. Leave the pre-moisties and the teen queens alone, pick on these guys instead.

Oy. Keep reading please:

“Bronies have their own news sites, fan forums, and even a healthy amount of fan art of ponies doing unspeakablesexualactson Tumblr. They’ve had real life meet-ups, and an upcoming BronyCon in New York will feature appearances by voice actors from the show.

In the pecking order of internet weirdo subcultures, bronies fall somewhere between Ron Paul supporters and furries. For this reason, I like to do a search for “bronies” on Twitter every now and then to see if there’s anything worth ironically retweeting. It was while doing this search that I stumbled onto the piracy scandal unfolding between trademark holder Hasbro and a popular brony site.

Until last week, PonyArchive.org was a keystone of the Brony community. The fan site offered free full episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and had around 30,000 visitors a week. PonyArchive’s videos were much higher quality than YouTube, making it the best destination for fans who didn’t want to buy episodes on iTunes or wait for the DVD release in February. It also serviced international fans who couldn’t access the show on TV or iTunes in their country.

It turns out giant international corporations don’t love it when you pirate their content, even if the words “friendship” and “magic” occur in its title. On December 14, Hasbro sent a take-down notice to PonyArchive.org. PonyArchive, which was based in Sweden, did not comply, and sent this email reply, reposted on BronyNews:

BronyNews? They’re as popular as Furries? Seriously?

“Thanks for your consern [sic]. Since we are merely spreading friendship and magic we feel that we’re protected by princess Celestia herself. Also, we are not based in the US – so US law does not apply to us.

Please feel free to download the episodes from our website in order tolearn about accepting, friendship and happyness too.”

Anyone who spells it ‘happyness’ needs to be deported to Shut-it-Up-You-Hipster-Choadville.

Have a nice one 🙂

“But Hasbro did not want to learn about accepting or happyness. They sent a second notice, and by December 20th, PonyArchive relented and removed all content from the site except this message under the heading “Fuck you, Hasbro”:

Dear Celestia,

Today we learned that Hasbro, are no real bros. They are indeed proper wankers.

We were only trying to spread the word that friendship is magic, and then these twats came along with their fancy threat-letters.

Please, banish HasNObro to the hell-holes forever.

Yours trulyPony Mc Archiveington”

I have warm fuzzies for this letter writer because he uses ‘wankers’ and ‘twats’ in his message. Gives me hope for the future.

“(According to the Friendship Is Magic wiki, Princess Celestia is a “winged unicorn, the supreme ruler of Equestria”—the world of My Little Pony.)

These harsh words sparked a rift in the brony community. Had PonyArchive reacted immaturely, or was it a justified response to a snub by Hasbro? EquestriaDaily, the most popular brony blog, had 844 comments on its post about the crack-down.

Most commenters were anti-PonyArchive:

“Being a brony, I am ashamed to be associated with people that choose to answer in such an arrogant and self-entitled manner. It’s childish, that’s what it is. The last thing this fandom need are people like this.”

“Not cool, PonyArchive. You’re failing to love and tolerate the very people who introduced the love and tolerate rule. Shame…”

Bronies are so over, guys. Hate to break it to you. Time to send ’em to the My Pretty Abattoir or The Kingdom of All Things Made of Glue, maybe put a resume together and attempt to find a gig somewhere…like…

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One thought on “Next stop: The Internet abattoir”

See, this is why I read McCrabass. I had no idea. And I’m left gobsmacked at this entire phenomenon, from the very existence of a teevee show I never heard of and want no part of to the butterfly-hung mouth-breathers who construct an existence around it. What a waste of sperm.